Marvel Announces The Return of Howard The Duck In New Comic Series

He was teased in a moment of pure joy at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy, and now Howard the Duck is making his long awaited return to Marvel comics in a new series due for release in March 2015. EW broke the news posting an interview with the the new book's creators, Chip Zdarsky and Joe Quinones, and there's also some great preview art showing the new-look Howard and some of the early sketches that helped shape his appearance.

(Credit: Marvel/EW)

As you can see from the preliminary study above, this new Howard is going to look a little different to previous iterations of the alien duck. It may sound silly to say this, but this new Howard looks far less cartoony, and that's exactly what Zdarsky and Quinones intended. Here's what Quinones had to say about Howard's new look:

"I knew I wanted to disassociate his look a bit from being a literal cartoon duck, like Daffy or Donald, and instead into a sort of middle ground. Obviously I'm cartooning him here, but I wanted Howard to get away from the giant cartoon eyes. Howard should be able to sit in the same panel as Rocket Raccoon or Spider-man, and not have it look like Who Framed Roger Rabbit. He's not from Toon Town. He's just talking duck in a suit. That's doing most of the work for you already."

The artwork below demonstrates perfectly how Howard now looks far more realistic, or as realistic as a humanoid talking duck can possibly look.

Howard the Duck #1 is scheduled for release on March 4th 2015, and you can watch Zdarsky and Quinones discuss their new creation in a video over at EW.